but without surprise; nor did she therefore hesitate to arrange
the fatal flower in her bosom. There it blushed, and almost
glimmered with the dazzling effect of a precious stone, adding to
her dress and aspect the one appropriate charm which nothing else
in the world could have supplied. But Giovanni, out of the shadow
of his window, bent forward and shrank back, and murmured and
trembled.

"Am I awake? Have I my senses?" said he to himself. "What is this
being? Beautiful shall I call her, or inexpressibly terrible?"

Beatrice now strayed carelessly through the garden, approaching
closer beneath Giovanni's window, so that he was compelled to
thrust his head quite out of its concealment in order to gratify
the intense and painful curiosity which she excited. At this
moment there came a beautiful insect over the garden wall; it
had, perhaps, wandered through the city, and found no flowers or
verdure among those antique haunts of men until the heavy
perfumes of Dr. Rappaccini's shrubs had lured it from afar.
Without alighting on the flowers, this winged brightness seemed
to be attracted by Beatrice, and lingered in the air and
fluttered about her head. Now, here it could not be but that
Giovanni Guasconti's eyes deceived him. Be that as it might, he
fancied that, while Beatrice was gazing at the insect with
childish delight, it grew faint and fell at her feet; its bright
wings shivered; it was dead--from no cause that he could discern,
unless it were the atmosphere of her breath. Again Beatrice
crossed herself and sighed heavily as she bent over the dead
insect.